


Make Our Escape

by shinealightonme



Category: Criminal Minds, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Challenge Response, Crossover, Gen, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-21
Updated: 2010-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-09 15:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor takes a new companion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Our Escape

**Author's Note:**

> written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/xoverland/profile)[**xoverland**](http://community.livejournal.com/xoverland/) for the Crime Show challenge. Originally posted [on LJ](http://shinealightonme.livejournal.com/100718.html).

"That's your name?" he'd asked her. "Elle, just Elle? No one ever called you anything different?"

He wasn't sure it was a good idea to be picking up strays – not right now, not when the memory of losing his companion (again) was still so fresh – and yet, here they were.

Ah, well, if he was going to head into trouble, best to run right in. He hadn't yet learned the trick for avoiding trouble entirely, and after 900 years, he rather thought that ship had sailed.

She did have a gaze could halt an avalanche, though. "It's hard to come up with something shorter than Elle."

"We-ll, that's the trouble, isn't it," the Doctor said, rubbing his chin. "Just a lack of creativity, when you think that nicknames have to be shorter than the name itself. But that's you humans, isn't it...always in a rush, have to save time."

He stared at nothing for a minute before clapping his hands together. There was something rewarding about seeing her jump like that, about breaking through her armor at least a bit. "But not us, oh no! We've got all the time in the world. I could call you – Elle-emme-enne-oh-pea."

"You could," she concede. "You aren't planning to, are you?"

"Oh, I don't know, if could be fun! Don't you think?"

There was just the slightest hint of a smile on her face. The Doctor took it as reassurance; he'd been starting to think she had no sense of humor at all, and he did so love companions with senses of humor.

He took her to Eole, landing the Tardis at the base of a frozen waterfall, because she said she wanted to go somewhere bright and quiet. Her whole demeanor changed the moment she stepped foot out of the Tardis; she barely seemed aware of the cold.

She hadn't smiled like that on Earth. Among her own people, her eyes didn't sparkle with wonder, her laughter didn't ring like bells.

He nearly hadn't invited her aboard the Tardis, for all that she'd helped him divert a disaster that would have obliterated half of North America. He'd seen through her mask of apathy to the rage that lived underneath, cozy and comfortable in her core. He didn't know what had happened to cause the first spark of anger, but he could tell that it had been simmering for a long time, more painful every day and more precious for it.

That anger was something he understood a little too well. It troubled him. But if there was a chance he could take that off someone else's hands, he had to try.


End file.
